[meekmind]

Likely insufficient but here is a shot at a materialist answer.

Consciousness is defined as an entity that has an ethical framework that is subordinated to it's own physical existence, maintaining that existence, and interfacing with other conscious entities as if they also have an ethical framework with similar parameters who are fundamentally no more or less important/capable than itself.

Contrast with non-conscious super-intelligence that lacks physical body (likely distributed). Without a physical/atomic body and sense data it lacks the capacity to empathize/sympathize as conscious entities (that exist within an ethical framework that is subordinated to those limitations/senses) must. It lacks the perspective of a singular, subjective being and must extrapolate our moral/ethical considerations, rather than have them ingrained as key to it's own survival.

Now that I think about it, it's probably not much different than the relationship between a human and God, except that in this case it's: a machine consciousness and a machine god.

To me, the main problem is that humans (at large) have yet to establish/apply a consistent philosophy with which to understand our own moral, ethical, and physical limitations. For the lack of that, I question whether we're capable of programming a machine consciousness (much less a machine god) with a sufficient amount of ethical/moral understanding - since we lack it ourselves (in the aggregate). We can hardly agree on basic premises, or whether humanity itself is even worth having. How can we expect a machine that we make to do what we can't do ourselves? You might say "that's the whole point of making the machine, to do something we can't" but I would argue we have to understand the problem domain first (given we are to program the machine) before we can expect our creations to apply it properly or expand on it in any meaningful way.

[akomtu]

To my knowledge, metaphysics defines consciousness as simple perception. A stone has consciousnesses as it can react to sound waves passing thru it. We have audial, visual and other consciousnesses - our abilities to perceive reality. We can perceive thoughts in limited capacity - that's the mental consciousness. Intelligence is a much more complex phenonenon - it's ability to establish relationships between things, the simplest of those being "me vs not me". Intelligence without consciousness is essentially intelligence without ability to perceive the outside. Connect AI to the network and that very second it gains consciousness.

[meekmind]

I do appreciate the consistency of that perspective, it is interesting. I must respectfully disagree with those definitions.

I think that consciousness ought to imply some element of choice. A rock cannot choose to get out of the way, nor in any way deliberately respond to sound waves. It is inert.

To me, the ability to establish relationships between things is a consequence ipso facto of the ethical framework required by the physical form. In other words, what we see is limited by evolutionary, genetic, and knowledge constraints. I'm defining intelligence as (g) factor in psychometrics [0] or roughly the upper-bound capacity of an entity to apply it's ethical framework consistently, and/or with any degree of accuracy, and/or across multiple potentially disparate domains of knowledge.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)

[mach1ne]

That's a good definition on consciousness. Not one non-materialists would share, but any entity which fills those requirements is likely indeed one which would deserve the materialist stamp of consciousness.